PRINCESS ZOE – the stunning grey mare whose owner-trainer row has rocked racing – is being aimed at an August return to the track.
The Group 1 winner is yet to arrive at Paul Nolan’s Wexford yard after being removed from the care of long-time trainer Tony Mullins.
Brilliant grey Princess Zoe has August’s St Leger Trial at the Curragh pencilled in for her return
Paddy Kehoe, the horse’s owner, said he took the 2020 Prix Du Cadran heroine out of Mullins’ base because of concerns over her health.
Princess Zoe is ticking over on a farm in Wexford currently, a friend of Kehoe confirmed.
She is set to resume full training with Nolan soon and her intended target race back is the Group 3 St Leger Trial at the Curragh on August 20.
Princess Zoe finished second in that 1m6f contest in 2021.
The Galway Hurdle and a possible tilt at the Queen Alexandra at Royal Ascot had been mooted.
But they will come too soon in the calendar.
Instead, Princess Zoe, who was last seen when pulled up in the Grade 1 Mares’ Novice Hurdle at Fairyhouse in April, is in all likelihood set for an autumn campaign on the Flat.
The eight-year-old mare has run three times over hurdles, dead-heating with 40-1 Ladybank in a Punchestown mares maiden last January.
Princess Zoe has made just shy of £500,000 on the Flat.
Her most recent win in that sphere was the Group 3 Sagaro Stakes, a Gold Cup trial, at Ascot last April.
Mullins posted a video of Princess Zoe leaving his yard last month.
He said he thought she was going to stud only to find out she was off to a rival trainer.
The popular trainer said he was ‘heartbroken’ at losing a horse that meant so much to him.
But Kehoe told Sun Racing three blood tests confirmed the horse was not 100 per cent right and that he felt it was time for a new handler.
He claimed: “I asked a horse physio to have a look at Princess Zoe. I was worried about her health.
“The alarm bells started ringing over a blood test. I said ‘there’s something going on here’.
“We did three blood tests in all. After the first one, two further blood tests confirmed she had two problems. She had ulcers and was suffering from dehydration.
“There was no way that mare was fit to continue racing in her current condition.
“I was advised to take her out of training.”
